CAREERS & the disABLED Magazine, established in 1986, is the nation's first and only career-guidance and recruitment magazine for people with disabilities who are at undergraduate, graduate, or professional levels. Each issue features a special Braille section.

CAREERS & the disABLED has won many awards, including several media "Award of Excellence" acknowledgments from the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities.

This magazine reaches people with disabilities nationwide at their home addresses, colleges and universities, and chapters of student and professional organizations through a paid subscription.

The Billion Dollar Roundtable (BDR) has recently voted to expand its criteria of diverse businesses counted toward a corporation’s billion dollar supply chain spend on diverse-owned businesses to include certified Disability-Owned Business Enterprises (DOBEs). The criteria also now includes Service-Disabled Veteran Disability-Owned Business Enterprises (SDV-DOBE), Veteran-Disability Owned Business Enterprises (V-DOBEs) and LGBT Business Enterprises (LGBTBEs).

The announcement was recently made by the U.S. Business Leadership Network (USBLN), the Washington, DC-based disability inclusion business resource and national non-profit organization, and the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), the business voice of the LGBT community that’s also based in DC.

The BDR, billiondollarroundtable.org, was created in 2001 to recognize and celebrate corporations that achieved spending of at least $1 billion with diverse suppliers. It promotes and shares best practices in supply chain diversity excellence via the production of white papers, thought leadership and annual meetings.

The group encourages corporate entities to continue growing their supplier diversity programs by increasing commitment and spending levels each year.

“In a country where one in five Americans have a disability, corporations are realizing the importance of disability inclusion across the enterprise,” says Jill Houghton, president and CEO, USBLN, usbln.org.

“People with disabilities are nearly twice as likely to be self-employed as people without disabilities, and nearly one in 10 small businesses nationwide are veteran-owned. The inclusion of disability and LGBT-owned businesses presents more opportunities for diversity in the Billion Dollar Roundtable, and will lead to more economic opportunity for people with disabilities.”

To date the BDR reports at least $72 billion in spend diverse-owned businesses. That number is expected to continue climbing as corporations are encouraged to count their spend with LGBT-, disability- and veteran-owned firms.

“The inclusion of LGBT-, disability- and veteran-owned businesses into the Billion Dollar Roundtable reflects the national best practice in supplier diversity of including all communities at the table of opportunity,” says Justin Nelson, co-founder and president, NGLCC, nglcc.org.

“In the U.S., LGBT-owned businesses are creating 10s of thousands of jobs and adding more than $1.7 trillion to the economy, much of that due to inclusion in corporate supply chains. We’re proud to see our businesses included in the criteria that rewards corporate excellence in creating new opportunities for diverse-owned businesses to thrive.”